Meet Dan + 3 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner

What’s up newsletter friends?!?

I’m excited to have you along for the journey.?

Starting a business is a massive undertaking and if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you have a business or are interested in one. First off, hats off to you for taking a step few will take!

We all know starting a business is one of the hardest undertakings. Yet, it’s incredibly satisfying to create something that exists outside of yourself, and helps so many people.?

To start things off, I’d like to give a background about myself as there are a lot of people that preach business advice, with little to show for. A prerequisite of mine before following someone’s advice is to know what they have accomplished before I subscribe to their content.?

About Dan

I founded Uther at 21, creating the first golf towel line with unique designs. Despite having no prior business experience and dropping out of business school to start Uther, I learned more in the first three months of running Uther than in 2.5 years of university.

Within a couple months, Uther was accepted to local business programs which gave young entrepreneurs a $3k grant, and then a second one for $5k. I thought I made it with my $3k check in hand!?

I brought in our first shipment of 1,200 golf towels, shipping products from my parents' garage.

18 months later, in the span of 2 months, Dick’s / GolfGalaxy reached out to us, as well Golf Town. We launched our golf towels in over 1k retail stores, in the largest sporting goods stores in the US + golf stores in the US and Canada. We’ve had 20+ nationwide rollouts with Dick’s / Golf Town, as well have sold over 1.2 million golf balls in the last 3 years.?

I’ve also developed the first magnetic golf bag line, which is patent pending.

We’ve received acclaim for our products in Golf Digest, Forbes, the Today Show and many more.?

To sum it up, I’ve bootstrapped Uther to a multiple 7 figure / year business - with no co-founders + partners, with a product / customer first approach.?

Even with such businesses accomplishments, I’ve had some moments where things went completely sideways. I’ve been super grateful for entrepreneurs that share the other side of their story. Every single entrepreneur I follow has opened up about this - and it’s healthy to normalize what we all go through.?

Some of my most challenging moments have been experiencing an $80k + $70k return in the same month, a $40k retail chargeback for our factory using the wrong label material for a 5k box order, and our 3PL shipping a 100-store order with completely incorrect products, requiring us to recall the entire order. I’ve had multiple lawsuits against companies that have infringed upon our IP and have also been threatened to be sued for using another company's IP (sorry, Solo Cup!).

With all that being said, Uther is the greatest thing I’ve done and I like to think of the mistakes as an early cost to doing business.?

3 Thing I Wish I Knew Sooner?

1) Be very deliberate when deciding in house vs outsourcing

• In the case of the 3PL mess-up, despite giving clear instructions to the 3PL on how to pack the orders, I should have weighed the pros and cons of a 3PL versus in-house shipping, beyond economics. 90% of our business is in the US, so I thought the 3PL was the logical choice, with much lower last-mile shipping costs. However, we were at the mercy of such a 3PL for retail orders, which meant slower turnaround (weeks instead of days), and we were ultimately too far removed to guarantee the order would ship correctly.
• I’ve had friends who have gone too much in-house, creating a factory, which creates a high fixed cost and requires a constant flow of orders daily to break even. They’re now switching to co-packing to reduce their overhead.

2) Have your numbers dialled in

• I didn’t know our burn rate for way too long and the importance of tracking our overhead. You should be able to forecast the number of months of burn, and forecast your revenue/expenses month over month versus actuals.

3) Have clear goals, relentlessly pursue such goals with quarterly / weekly planning.

• Align your daily objectives with your ultimate target and remove anything that’s not moving the needle. ?

These are a few foundational tips businesses should consider. I’ll be speaking about some nuanced tips for those of you that already have your fundamentals dialled in!

If there’s anything you’d like me to cover, please send me a DM! I’d be happy to receive all sorts of feedback.?

Also my next newsletter is about, “Creating a Great Product”. Speak soon!

Dan